[eDebate] 2 GIs found dead

[Jake Stromboli]

i hate to say it that we predicted that they would not be found alive but we 
did.   the only reason we felt it necessary to predict this was the fact 
that the military rescue operation was elaborate and expensive but way too 
little too late.   you don't start such a search mission after the 
kidnappers have had hours to evacuate the area.   the massive search 
operation appears to have been politically motivated since the disappearance 
of the 2 GIs came immediately on the heels of the upbeat, positive new 
development angle attempted by the scrambling administration.   a dramatic 
rescue would have allowed the administration to continue w candyland 
rhetoric instead now they have to mourn and talk about the importance of 
sacrificing young americans for ideas again.  nice try, cheney, you failed 
again:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/world/20cnd-iraq.html?hp&ex=1150862400&en=4dff42fe4eea893b&ei=5094&partner=homepage

issing GIs Found Dead, Iraqi Says
    By Sabrina Tavernise
    The New York Times
Tuesday 20 June 2006

 Baghdad - The Iraqi military said today that the bodies of two American 
soldiers missing since Friday were found this morning outside the town where 
they were captured.

A spokesman for the American military confirmed in a televised interview 
that Iraqi forces had found two bodies, but said that they had not been 
identified.

Ibrahim Obeidi, a spokesman for the Iraqi ministry of defense, said that 
soldiers had discovered the two bodies early this morning in the village of 
Jarf as-Sakhr, which is on the outskirts of Yusufiya, where the abduction 
took place.

On Monday, an Islamic militant group linked to Al Qaeda had said it had 
captured two American soldiers listed as missing, but it offered no proof, 
and American military officials remained skeptical.

The two soldiers disappeared Friday night in an ambush southwest of Baghdad, 
and the military has been searching vigorously in and around Yusufiya with a 
force of 8,000 American and Iraqi troops.

The captured soldiers were identified by the military on Monday as Pfc. 
Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, 
Ore. A third soldier, Specialist David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, 
Mass., was killed when insurgents attacked the three at a traffic 
checkpoint.

Regarding the search for the two soldiers who have been missing since 
Friday, a message posted Monday on a Web site of the Council of Holy 
Warriors, which says it oversees Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and seven other 
militant groups, said, "Our brothers in the military wing" had seized the 
soldiers near Yusufiya, the town where the military began its search. "We 
will provide you with more details on this incident in the next few days," 
the group said.

It was not clear whether the assertion was true: the group's posting was 
unusually brief and did not say precisely where the soldiers had been 
seized. It offered no pictures of the soldiers.

In a separate posting, the same group said it had kidnapped four Russian 
Embassy employees in the upscale neighborhood of Mansour in early June. The 
group gave the Russian government 48 hours to withdraw from Chechnya, a 
rebellious Muslim republic within Russia, and to release Muslim detainees 
from Russian prisons.

The Russian Foreign Ministry, in a statement on Monday, called for the 
release of the embassy employees.

An American military spokeswoman said the military was investigating the 
claim about the soldiers, but an American official in Baghdad cautioned that 
the military viewed the Web statement with some skepticism. It contained 
only information that could have been easily gleaned from news articles on 
the Internet.

Also, the official said, the council is an umbrella group and does not 
itself have the fighters needed to carry out an attack like the one it says 
led to the soldiers' capture.

The sweeping search continued for the soldiers, identified by the military 
on Monday as Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Pfc. Thomas L. 
Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore. A third soldier, Specialist David J. Babineau, 
25, of Springfield, Mass., was killed when insurgents attacked the three at 
a traffic checkpoint.

 Since Friday, troops had searched 12 villages, detained 34 Iraqis and 
conducted 12 cordon-and-search operations, the military said. Troops were 
supported by fighter jets and pilotless Predator drones.

A resident in Karagol, the village that appeared to be closest to where the 
soldiers were taken, said the Americans had shut off all water and 
electricity in the town.

The troops appear to have met some resistance. Since Friday, three Iraqis 
identified as insurgents have been killed, the military said, and seven 
Americans have been wounded.

Another Internet posting surfaced Monday in which Ansar al-Sunna, a militant 
group operating in northern Iraq, said it had captured an Iraqi woman 
serving as a translator, Salma Gasem Hamadi, a Shiite who the group said was 
working for the American military in Tikrit.

The posting included a chilling warning for translators in the area to 
"leave your work immediately before we get you," according to a translation 
provided by the SITE Institute, a group that tracks militant Web sites.


In Rome on Monday, three Italian prosecutors requested the indictment of an 
American soldier for the shooting of an Italian intelligence agent, Nicola 
Calipari, who was killed by gunfire at a checkpoint in Iraq last year, the 
Italian news agency ANSA reported.


    According to the report, the Italian prosecutors have asked that the 
soldier, identified as Specialist Mario Lozano, a member of the New York 
National Guard, stand trial for murder and attempted murder.


    On March 4, 2005, just after securing the release of an Italian 
journalist who had been kidnapped in Baghdad, Mr. Calipari was killed when 
the car carrying him and the journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, came under fire at 
a checkpoint.


    A spokesman for the United States Embassy in Rome said ithad not been 
contacted about the indictments and declined comment.


    Also on Monday, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said Iraqi troops 
would assume full responsibility in July for security in Muthanna Province, 
making it the first province outside of the Kurdish north to be under full 
Iraqi control.


    [On Tuesday, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan announced said 
that Tokyo would withdraw its troops from Iraq, Reuters reported. About 550 
Japanese soldiers have been in Samawa, part of Muthanna Province in southern 
Iraq, since February 2004 on a non-combat mission.]


    In all, 13 Iraqis were killed and 36 wounded Monday in violence in 
Baghdad and in Diyala Province to the north, Iraqi authorities said.


    --------

    Sabrina Tavernise reported for this article from Baghdad. Reporting was 
contributed by Richard A. Oppel Jr., Mona Mahmoud and Omar al-Neami from 
Baghdad, and by John O'Neil from New York and Peter Kiefer from Rome.

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